So Cal Personal Injury Attorney

What is Emergency Room Malpractice?

What is Emergency Room Malpractice? - Karlin & Karlin

Given the chaotic nature of emergency rooms, it should come as no surprise that patients are often neglected, misdiagnosed, or otherwise harmed by the actions of physicians, surgeons, and nurses alike. Under these circumstances, emergency room malpractice lawsuits can help patients recover compensation for the injuries they sustained. Of course, emergency room malpractice can occur in a variety of different situations, so it’s important to understand what they are and how they might apply to a specific case.

Types of Emergency Room Malpractice Errors

Emergency room malpractice errors most commonly take the form of a misdiagnosis, but that isn’t the only type of error. Aside from a misdiagnosis, emergency room errors can also include neglect from physicians and EMTs, malpractice resulting from improper anesthesia use, surgical errors, contaminated blood transfusions, and even a failure to diagnose. As it happens, failure to diagnose is one of the leading causes of emergency room malpractice suits. A failure to diagnose typically occurs when doctors fail to identify a disease such as cancer or heart disease before it becomes life-threatening.

How Malpractice Errors Occur

Unfortunately, emergency rooms are typically overcrowded, and their staff is often overworked. As a result, malpractice errors happen with much more frequency than people might otherwise assume. Despite the nature of emergency rooms though, everyone deserves fair and proper treatment, and that’s why these suits are important. In fact, malpractice suits of this nature often help doctors and hospitals to identify issues and fix them before they become a problem for other patients in the future. And, of course, malpractice suits help patients to cover expenses resulting from any errors that occurred, including future costs associated with any lingering injuries.

Common Injuries from Malpractice Errors

Oftentimes, a failure to diagnose isn’t recognized until it’s too late, with the patient suffering from a heart attack due to undiagnosed chest pains, or something similar. Aside from diagnosis issues, patients can also suffer injuries as a result of neglect or surgical error, which can then lead to any number of unfortunate circumstances, including internal bleeding, brain aneurysms, or even a stroke.

Although dealing with these circumstances can be difficult, it’s much easier to handle these types of cases with the help of the knowledgeable and experienced emergency room malpractice attorneys at Karlin & Karlin.